Now we need to finger out a way to get our Linux on with these systems in a Boot Camp scenario...
First - the Boot Loader / OS Loader
If I recall correctly, Apples BootX boot loader (both PPC/i386 Darwin) supported reading kernels from an ext2 filesystem. I'm just not sure if it actually had the code necessary to boot the Linux kernel. This would be a nice perk for Apples existing EFI BootX loader - if it doesn't already exist...
Second - Filesystems
The FAT32 format should be out of the question for any Windows installation due to potential filesystem inconsisitencies that could render Windows unbootable. Yeck. NTFS is read-only from Mac OS X. Windows has no (native and/or free) HFS+ support. What is the best option for an OS-independent shared filesystem?
Ext3 with Linux! Not only can you then boot our favorite free operating system, but you can also use that same filesystem to store your shared data (from an OS standpoint). The best part is you wont have any limitations like 4.0GB file sizes or read-only support.
I'm not sure if they support Ext3's journaling capabilities, but that would be a very nicely added bonus. Permissions could be a tricky thing if needed.
With some developer support both of these projects could greatly benefit those of us wishing to make use of dual booting, either with Boot Camp or the XOM OnMac solution (recently open sourced under their own license).
start with getting in to efi. i dont know if its the same key-combo as open firmware (command-option-o-f) or something new (any apple/efi docs anywhere? i couldn't find anything on the apple site).
this intel tutorial is the best thing i've found regarding efi from an end-user standpoint yet - and ive been reading through it for the past half hour to get myself up to speed...
http://www.intel.com/software/products/college/efi shell/
some people with macintel imacs on the macnn forums (currently down) are trying to boot off of the vista 5270 build with no success yet - but i have a feeling they are clueless about getting into/using efi.
everyone was saying 'hold down C! hold down C!' until someone mentioned that the key to boot off of optical media has now switched to D. people have tried that and it doesn't appear to boot.
i don't have access to vista 5270, but people mentioned a hidden 'BOOT' folder on their hard drive root with Microsoft/EFI boot files. are these same files available on the installation media?
regardless, once knowledgable people can get in to efi and start querying it about boot media can progress be made...
oh, and to all of the people complaining/questioning why people want to dual boot windows on a macintel i have one word for you:
steam
actually i could rant on about all kinds of other windows-only software. for me, windows has the best emulators around. having tested a few mac emulators/ports, it appears most of them are rubbish - especially from the input (controller) support as well as the display output support (monitor resolutions, scaling filters, etc).
regardless of BIOS emulation in EFI, the following will effect the ability to run any non-EFI aware versions of windows:
although presently unconfirmed, it is safe to assume that the new Intel Mac's are using the EFI partition scheme. anything up until Windows XP likely does not recognize a non-fdisk partition scheme and will fail to boot. XP 64-Bit has support for EFI partitions and Vista is planned to support it, but as mentioned many times before now: Intel Core Duo lacks EMT64....oh, I also remember someone mention installing a Vista build on the new Macintel platform, only to be told to check the release notes: EFI support is not present in the current builds...
who knows for certain if it will be possible to run Mac OS X 10.4.4/i386 on a repartitioned fdisk scheme for the ability to emulate bios for dual-booting windows... like the DARWIN 8.0, the developer transition kits used an fdisk partition scheme formatted as HFS+.
i have no experience with WINE, but i do know that Half-Life 2 - a publicly acclaimed best game of 2005 (which I agree with) - along with the rest of the STEAM-bundled games is exclusive to Windows only. i also have a chronic nostalgic addiction to emulation of many classic consoles - many of which lack worthy Mac OS X ports. this hurts my hopes in moving to (my opinion) the best user friendly UNIX OS from a Windows/DOS user of near 15 years.
it will take time for all the great free (gaming) software that has been developed extensively on Windows to make its way over to the Macintel platform - if at all (Valve?). not to mention the status of drivers for popular gaming-related hardware (controllers, playstation2-usb, etc).
i enjoy games. i would rather use Mac OS X over Windows for everything. i've waited for an Intel version of Mac OS X since i first heard about RHAPSODY in 1998.
now i can only hope that those developers who've made such great software on Wintel can get the same software ported to Macintel at the same level of quality. because the machines were only just released i'm filled with uncertainty, and i'm considering educating myself to learn some programming to help assist open source emulation/game projects in transitioning a worthy version over to Mac OS X (probably the worst motivation to learn programming, eh?). more uncertainty lies in the price premium for the Apple hardware and in getting a non-TPM version of Mac OS X 'cracked' to work on non-Apple hardware. everyone is picky.
so with all of that said, right now i would rather dual boot than have two machines to juggle my day-to-day computing & gaming in my 'media center/HTPC' living-room. i already have a four-year-old noisy Windows box in the living room that is too slow. if i drop the cash for a Macintel system i don't want to then get a DVI KVM hooked up to the LCD TV - nor spend a dime towards the dead-end Pentium 4/BIOS architecture. feh.
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Now we need to finger out a way to get our Linux on with these systems in a Boot Camp scenario...
First - the Boot Loader / OS Loader
If I recall correctly, Apples BootX boot loader (both PPC/i386 Darwin) supported reading kernels from an ext2 filesystem. I'm just not sure if it actually had the code necessary to boot the Linux kernel. This would be a nice perk for Apples existing EFI BootX loader - if it doesn't already exist...
Second - Filesystems
The FAT32 format should be out of the question for any Windows installation due to potential filesystem inconsisitencies that could render Windows unbootable. Yeck. NTFS is read-only from Mac OS X. Windows has no (native and/or free) HFS+ support. What is the best option for an OS-independent shared filesystem?
Ext3 with Linux! Not only can you then boot our favorite free operating system, but you can also use that same filesystem to store your shared data (from an OS standpoint). The best part is you wont have any limitations like 4.0GB file sizes or read-only support.
There are existing projects for Ext2 on both platforms, as seen here:
http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ - Windows
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/ - Mac OS X
I'm not sure if they support Ext3's journaling capabilities, but that would be a very nicely added bonus. Permissions could be a tricky thing if needed.
With some developer support both of these projects could greatly benefit those of us wishing to make use of dual booting, either with Boot Camp or the XOM OnMac solution (recently open sourced under their own license).
start with getting in to efi. i dont know if its the same key-combo as open firmware (command-option-o-f) or something new (any apple/efi docs anywhere? i couldn't find anything on the apple site). this intel tutorial is the best thing i've found regarding efi from an end-user standpoint yet - and ive been reading through it for the past half hour to get myself up to speed... http://www.intel.com/software/products/college/efi shell/
some people with macintel imacs on the macnn forums (currently down) are trying to boot off of the vista 5270 build with no success yet - but i have a feeling they are clueless about getting into/using efi.
everyone was saying 'hold down C! hold down C!' until someone mentioned that the key to boot off of optical media has now switched to D. people have tried that and it doesn't appear to boot.
i don't have access to vista 5270, but people mentioned a hidden 'BOOT' folder on their hard drive root with Microsoft/EFI boot files. are these same files available on the installation media?
regardless, once knowledgable people can get in to efi and start querying it about boot media can progress be made...
oh, and to all of the people complaining/questioning why people want to dual boot windows on a macintel i have one word for you:
steam
actually i could rant on about all kinds of other windows-only software. for me, windows has the best emulators around. having tested a few mac emulators/ports, it appears most of them are rubbish - especially from the input (controller) support as well as the display output support (monitor resolutions, scaling filters, etc).
regardless of BIOS emulation in EFI, the following will effect the ability to run any non-EFI aware versions of windows:
...oh, I also remember someone mention installing a Vista build on the new Macintel platform, only to be told to check the release notes: EFI support is not present in the current builds...
although presently unconfirmed, it is safe to assume that the new Intel Mac's are using the EFI partition scheme. anything up until Windows XP likely does not recognize a non-fdisk partition scheme and will fail to boot. XP 64-Bit has support for EFI partitions and Vista is planned to support it, but as mentioned many times before now: Intel Core Duo lacks EMT64.
who knows for certain if it will be possible to run Mac OS X 10.4.4/i386 on a repartitioned fdisk scheme for the ability to emulate bios for dual-booting windows... like the DARWIN 8.0, the developer transition kits used an fdisk partition scheme formatted as HFS+.
i have no experience with WINE, but i do know that Half-Life 2 - a publicly acclaimed best game of 2005 (which I agree with) - along with the rest of the STEAM-bundled games is exclusive to Windows only. i also have a chronic nostalgic addiction to emulation of many classic consoles - many of which lack worthy Mac OS X ports. this hurts my hopes in moving to (my opinion) the best user friendly UNIX OS from a Windows/DOS user of near 15 years.
it will take time for all the great free (gaming) software that has been developed extensively on Windows to make its way over to the Macintel platform - if at all (Valve?). not to mention the status of drivers for popular gaming-related hardware (controllers, playstation2-usb, etc).
i enjoy games. i would rather use Mac OS X over Windows for everything. i've waited for an Intel version of Mac OS X since i first heard about RHAPSODY in 1998.
now i can only hope that those developers who've made such great software on Wintel can get the same software ported to Macintel at the same level of quality. because the machines were only just released i'm filled with uncertainty, and i'm considering educating myself to learn some programming to help assist open source emulation/game projects in transitioning a worthy version over to Mac OS X (probably the worst motivation to learn programming, eh?). more uncertainty lies in the price premium for the Apple hardware and in getting a non-TPM version of Mac OS X 'cracked' to work on non-Apple hardware. everyone is picky.
so with all of that said, right now i would rather dual boot than have two machines to juggle my day-to-day computing & gaming in my 'media center/HTPC' living-room. i already have a four-year-old noisy Windows box in the living room that is too slow. if i drop the cash for a Macintel system i don't want to then get a DVI KVM hooked up to the LCD TV - nor spend a dime towards the dead-end Pentium 4/BIOS architecture. feh.